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Demonstrating the capacity to surprise, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un acted like a modern statesman when he ventured into the Republic of Korea for his summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. That doesn’t mean Kim and his heavily armed nation are not potentially dangerous. But after watching Kim in action, as Margaret Thatcher said of Mikhail Gorbachev, “we can do business together.”

Reasons for caution are many. After all, Kim’s father had summits with two successive South Korean presidents, but by earlier this year people were talking about the possibility of nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea. However, despite the danger of excessive expectations, the diplomatic option first advanced by Kim has shifted the peninsula away from military conflict, at least in the short-term.

Which is a major benefit. As I point out in a new study for Cato, war simply is not an option. It wouldn’t be “over there,” as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) infamously assured us. Americans would be directly involved, even if the North was not capable of striking the U.S. homeland. In any case, if war resulted, the likely death and destruction on the peninsula, with South Korea a major part of the battlefield, and likely beyond, including Japan, would be far too great to justify the risk.

Great powers usually have client states. Although a sign of influence, the latter often are more trouble than they are worth. North Korea increasingly appears that way for Beijing.

The Chinese-North Korean relationship was oft said to be like lips and teeth, forged in blood during the Korean War. But even then, the relationship was fraught with tension.

Today those look like the “good ol’ days.” There is little doubt that the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has lost the support of Chinese public opinion.

Academics and analysts outside of government also show little love for China’s one ally, which only takes and never gives. Top officials no longer attempt to disguise their frustration with the North’s behavior.

The Kim regime has returned ill-disguised contempt. Emissaries from the People’s Republic of China came and went as the North Korean leader failed to make even a pretense of listening.

So Se Pyong, Pyongyang’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva and the UN’s Conference on Disarmament, predictably denounced the United States and South Korea. When asked if the North felt pressure from the PRC after President Xi called for dialogue over the Korean “predicament,” So responded: “Whether they are going to do anything, we don’t care. We are going on our own way.”

Yet again North Korea has angered “the world.” Pyongyang violated another United Nations ban, launching a satellite into orbit. Washington is leading the campaign to sanction the North.

Announced UN Ambassador Samantha Power: “The accelerated development of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program poses a serious threat to international peace and security—to the peace and security not just of North Korea’s neighbors, but the peace and security of the entire world.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a bad actor. No one should welcome further enhancements to the DPRK’s weapons arsenal.

Four decades ago South Korea’s President Park Chung-hee, father of the current president, launched a quest for nuclear weapons. Washington, the South’s military protector, applied substantial pressure to kill the program.

Today it looks like Park might have been right.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues its relentless quest for nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. The South is attempting to find an effective response.

Although the DPRK is unlikely to attack since it would lose a full-scale war, the Republic of Korea remains uncomfortably dependent on America. And Washington’s commitment to the populous and prosperous ROK likely will decline as America’s finances worsen and challenges elsewhere multiply.

In response, there is talk of reviving the South’s nuclear option. Won Yoo-cheol, parliamentary floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, told the National Assembly: “We cannot borrow an umbrella from a neighbor every time it rains. We need to have a raincoat and wear it ourselves.”

Whenever North Korea heads to the negotiating table one remembers the traditional description of a second marriage: the triumph of hope over experience. We’ve been here before. Or, more accurately, the two Koreas have.

Still, as Winston Churchill famously said, better to jaw-jaw than war-war. The last Korean conflict left millions of casualties and refugees. Even a minor league war could be catastrophic.

Nevertheless, the Republic of Korea should have no illusions about the latest negotiations, scheduled for America’s Thanksgiving. Nothing much is likely to emerge from that gathering. And nothing that emerges is likely to survive very long.

Many U.S. policymakers see China as the answer to North Korean proliferation. If Beijing would just tell the North’s Kim Jong-un to behave, East Asia’s biggest problem would disappear.

Of course, it’s not that simple. To be sure, the People’s Republic of China has influence in Pyongyang, but the latter always has jealously guarded its independence.

Still, the current regime does not appear to be as stable as its predecessors. Powerful Chinese pressure, if backed by economic sanctions, might encourage now incipient opposition.

The China-North Korea relationship goes back to the Korean War. Although, Beijing no longer hides its dissatisfaction with the North, the PRC is not yet willing to abandon its sole ally.

Its reluctance is understandable. Violent conflict within the DPRK, mass refugee flows across the Yalu, loss of Chinese investments, and a united Korea hosting U.S. troops all are possibilities no PRC government desires. China’s interest is almost purely negative, avoiding what the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea could become.

Americans lived for decades with the fear of instant death from a Soviet nuclear strike. The People’s Republic of China has acquired a similar, though more limited, capability. Nothing happened in either case, because even evil people who acted like barbarians at home refused to commit suicide abroad.

North Koreans might be impoverished and starving, but Pyongyang has entered the Internet age. Unfortunately, the new leadership isn’t using its skills to make friends.

Thirty-year-old ruler Kim Jong-un has followed his “Great Leader” grandfather and “Dear Leader” father, so some of us call him the “Cute Leader.” But he’s not proving to be warm and cuddly—at least toward the United States.

The so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea recently posted an animated YouTube video showing Manhattan in flames after a missile attack from an unnamed country. The images are cribbed from the video game Call of Duty and the audio is an instrumental version of Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie’s “We Are the World”—so it’s not exactly an ILM-quality production. Scrolling across the pictures is Korean text reading, “It appears that the headquarters of evil, which has had a habit of using force and unilateralism and committing wars of aggression, is going up in flames it itself has ignited.”

The DPRK video—removed from YouTube because of copyright violation but still available elsewhere—occasioned hand-wringing and worries that maybe the United States should take the threat seriously. However, the threat is nothing new. Pyongyang previously issued posters showing missiles hitting America’s Capitol Hill.

The North Koreans aren’t the only people to view Washington as the Center of All Evil. However, most of the rest of us, especially here at Cato, don’t view foreign missile attacks as a particularly good solution to political disagreements.

Relations between North Korea and the world are off to a familiar start in 2013. Last week, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution tightening sanctions on Pyongyang in response to its missile test last December. The reclusive regime responded by predictably issuing threats against America and its allies.